R Public Relations Firm
How To Approach PR as a Startup in 2023
Are you a startup founder looking to integrate PR into your overall marketing strategy? Treating PR as an integral element of your comprehensive success strategy is essential. Much like meticulous product development, your PR process should be strategic, agile, and clearly defined—emphasizing building relationships and setting realistic expectations. As a seasoned PR agency, RPR Firm has spearheaded numerous small businesses' successful PR initiatives.
This article reveals our tried-and-true approach, offering you the keys to navigating PR as a startup and ensuring a successful journey in 2023.
Startup PR in 2023
The PR industry is evolving, and some old rules no longer apply. If you want to achieve successful PR as a startup in 2023, here are a few tips on approaching it.
Start With a Clearly Defined PR Strategy
The startup workflow is often fast-paced and disorganized, so it's easy to pick a random PR approach as your strategy. Most businesses make this mistake, and it's often the fastest route to failure in implementing PR for a startup. A strategy is not just a nice-to-have; it's essential in guiding your campaign tactics and performance. When creating your strategy, it should include key elements like:
- SMART PR goals that align with business plans
- Clear objectives
- Ideal target audience descriptions
- Media relations and outreach
- Key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Key messages and positioning
- Crisis communication plan
- Content marketing strategy
- Employee's roles and responsibilities
- Measurement and evaluation
Each section should always answer the question, "Does this help us achieve our main business goals?" For example, if your business goal for the year is $10,000 in online sales, including customer success stories in content marketing activities will help more than using employee success stories.
Be Realistic With Your PR Performance Expectations
Many startup founders mistakenly view PR as a quick fix for rapid business growth. Although you can achieve viral content status, it's often not as frequent and may never happen for many businesses. As a startup, setting realistic PR expectations is crucial. Also, you need to understand that results may vary. For example, you may publish a product launch press release and expect it to get wide coverage. However, an unplanned global event hits the media the same day and takes all the attention away from your product launch or announcement. This is just one example of what could happen, so always set your expectations realistically and allow the PR team to function effectively.
Prioritize Building Relationships with Media and Journalists
You should cultivate genuine relationships with journalists and media personnel in your industry. It's easier to get media coverage when there's an existing interaction, and they understand your business and offers. Start by creating a list of journalists and media outlets covering your industry. Once completed, you can create personalized messages and pitch to start a conversation. This will allow you to build a connection and share your unique business story, angle, and insights for better media coverage.
Adopt a Multi-Channel PR Strategy
In the past, public relations was almost synonymous to press release distribution. However, times are changing, and you have podcasts, social media, content marketing, online events, influencer marketing, and many more PR channels at your disposal. Identify the best ones for your target audience and invest in them. There's nothing like too much attention if it's coming from the right audience. A multi-channel approach also helps you to experiment and identify the best-performing options within a short period.
Embrace PR as an Organization Initiative and Not just a Marketing Tool
Many startups use PR mainly for sales, highlighting product features and solutions. However, they often neglect to promote their company culture, ideas, and authentic story. This is often a result of creating a PR strategy that doesn't involve the organization as a moving part. In the long run, you might struggle with building a connection with your audience because your focus is on selling and less on telling a story that’s relevant to your target audience. However, treating your PR as a company initiative allows you to tell authentic stories that involve stakeholders and employees in your PR activities. For example, when you approach PR as a company initiative, you prioritize collaboration between HR and PR to create effective strategies for attracting top talent and retaining employees. When customers see that the product is made by real people, with real stores and challenges, they will connect better with your solutions.
Data-Driven PR is a Necessity
For startup PR success, tracking performance across all channels, campaigns, and brand mentions is indispensable. Invest in tools that can monitor key metrics such as media mentions, website traffic, social media engagement, and lead generation. The data from PR analytics tools like Google Analytics will help you.
- Understand audience behavior across multiple touchpoints
- Identify effective communication channels and tactics
- Create targeted messaging and personalization strategies
- Measure PR Impact
- Implement proactive crisis management
With this information, you can consistently refine your PR as a startup to achieve even better results.
Hire PR Professionals with Industry Experience
Whether you choose to build an in-house PR team or engage a PR agency, experience working with startups should be a must. Expertise in your industry is also important for implementing PR as a startup to avoid costly trial and error. For example, at RPR Firm, we are well-versed in helping startup lifestyle brands grow their businesses using PR strategies. Our approach focuses on creating personalized strategies that align with your goals and maintain best practices without compromising quality. Schedule a call to discuss how we can help your startup do PR the right way.
